He didn’t answer, but he smiled.
I walked to the front of the horse, lowering my chin as her glassy eyes fixed on me. She looked me over cagily, her apprehension so intense I could almost feel it in the same way I could feel Sorae’s emotions across our bond.
I extended my hand, inching closer to her in small steps. On instinct, I sent calming energy toward her in an unspoken promise that I meant her no harm. Her posture went unnaturally still, though her eyes followed my every movement.
“Hello there,” I murmured. “I hate to admit it, but I think the Prince was right. I think you and I might be kindred spirits.”
Her ears flicked toward me, her milky tail swishing once, then falling still. I took another step closer, then another, until my hand hovered just above her muzzle.
“Will you do me the honor of escorting me today?” I asked. “I won’t force you. The choice is up to you.”
I waited in silence, not daring to move. Finally, with a quiet huff, she pressed her nose against my palm, and I grinned wide. I rubbed the soft fuzz around her mouth, stroking my other hand along her neck. She nickered happily in response.
Luther joined me as I moved to her side to mount. I raised my foot to the stirrup and sucked in a breath as his hands curved low on my hips, hoisting me into the air and onto the saddle. His palm dragged slowly down my thigh as his hands fell away.
A stableman walked up, leading an outrageously large stallion with an equally large ego, its regal head arched elegantly toward the sky. Luther mounted the horse with ease, murmuring to the beast as he ran a hand along its silky night-black coat.
I frowned. “What happened to your other horse—the big white one you rode to the lodge?”
He gestured across the front lawn. “That one?”
There it was.
White as snow, with a patch of black between its eyes, and as tall as a house. Gold ribbon in its mane.
The horse Henri saw months ago when he witnessed its rider trample a mortal child to death. The same horse Luther rode the night he brought me to the palace for the first time as Queen.
And seated on its elaborate jeweled saddle was Aemonn Corbois.
“My horse threw a shoe that night,” Luther explained. “I was in a rush to get to you, so I took Aemonn’s instead.”
He barely even stopped, Henri had said. Gods, he was swearing at the boy for getting mud on his pretty bejeweled saddle.
Of course, of course it wasn’t Luther—it was Aemonn who killed that child in cold blood and rode away without a care.
Aemonn, who was now Keeper of the Laws.
Aemonn, who was now responsible for the fate of the half-mortal children.
Terror rose in my stomach, and I gripped the saddle to hold myself steady.
“What’s wrong?” Luther demanded, his voice turning sharp. “What happened?”
I kept my focus on Aemonn, watching as he smirked and laughed with his cousins, undisturbed by the possibility of my death. I had once believed there was some goodness in him, buried under his lies and plots. Had he been a monster all along, and I’d refused to see it?
Aemonn scanned the bustling front lawn and paused as his gaze met with mine. I made no effort to hide the horror that surely warped my features.
At first, his face filled with contempt, but as I continued to watch him, searching his bright blue eyes for some glimpse of the soul beneath, his expression wavered, then turned guarded—almost as if he knew what I was doing and feared what I might find.
“Is there a problem?” Luther asked. “Did Aemonn—”
“It’s nothing.” I scrambled to rebuild my composure. “I have to win today, Luther. I have to.”
“You will,” he insisted. There was such steadfast certainty in his voice, I almost began to believe it.
Luther nudged my horse toward the front of the procession. “It’s time. She knows the way.” He placed a fist across his chest and dipped his head. “Lead us, Your Majesty.”
I directed my mare to the front gate, refusing to make eye contact with Remis and Garath as I passed them to take the point position. They would ride at my flank, followed by Aemonn, then the rest of the Crown Council, with Teller and Lily just behind.
With no more titles to speak of and no formal connection to me, Luther should have been relegated to the back with the rest of the Corbois, but I knew better. I didn’t have to see him to know he would never be too far from my side, rules be damned.
As if he’d heard my thoughts, his familiar aura swirled around me and brushed against my skin. Despite the deadly odds I marched to meet, a smile spread across my face.
Chapter
Forty-One
The ride to the arena was long.
Torturously, excruciatingly long.
Envision-every-worst-case-scenario long.
Consider-grabbing-my-brother-and-making-a-break-for-it long.
Plummet-into-a-can’t-think-can’t-breathe-hands-trembling-state-of-overwhelming-panic long.
All my best efforts to clear my thoughts failed disastrously as my mind put me through a self-constructed gauntlet and forced me to revisit every move I’d made since becoming Queen. I thought of all the ways I could have avoided making enemies. All the ways I could have fluttered my lashes and sweet-talked my way out of a Challenge.
All the ways I could have saved my father.
And though I tried, with every shred of my being, to remember there was no point in regrets, and to focus on the only thing that mattered today—surviving, by the time the forest opened up to the towering stone walls, my storm of emotions had become downright cataclysmic.
The arena was nearly unrecognizable from what I remembered at the funeral. The thin bed of sand on the central floor had been covered with scattered obstacles—large boulders, fallen logs, pits of mud, and the like.
When I’d asked why obstacles were needed for a duel of pure magic, one of the cousins had explained that it was “for the amusement of the spectators—no one wants to come all this way just to watch a quick, simple death.”
At least my demise would be entertaining.
A covered tent had been set up to offer me a small reprieve from the eyes of the crowd—“for weepy goodbyes,” the same cousin had so helpfully clarified.
I entered first from the royal box, surrounded by House Corbois. They leapt into action around me, mingling and jostling for the seats with the best view of the carnage with a nauseatingly casual ease.
I walked to the balcony at the front and closed my eyes as a soft breeze kissed my face. Murmurs rippled through the crowd at the sight of me, their gossip pelting me like arrows—commentary on everything from my appearance to my magic to my dead father to which Corbois cousin was allegedly sharing my bed.
It was all a game to them—my life, my suffering. Just something to pass the decades during their long, boring lives of privilege.
The mortals, at least, saw this for the bloodthirsty spectacle it was, perhaps because a mortal life felt so delicate and fleeting in comparison to a Descended’s near-immortal existence. Somewhere along the way, the Descended had lost sight of that truth—that every life was precious, and every day a gift.
“I’m going to tell you a secret, but you have to swear to me you won’t react.”
I opened my eyes to see Luther standing at my side, shoulder-to-shoulder, his eyes gazing onto the arena floor.